Video: Creating and assigning keywords

In this exercise, I am going to show you how to create and assign Keywords inside of the Bridge. And it's a little bit of a pain in the neck, because it's a manual process. But you may find it fairly enjoyable. It's kind of Zen light. I cannot stress the importance of doing it on a regular basis. You will be so happy in the future, because the Bridge cannot look at an image and say hey, yeah there is a guy in a snowmobile. Or there is a mountaintop, or there is a tower, or there is a child or anything like that, whereas you can. So if you take some time to add Keywords for people, places and friends that kind of thing, then you can search for those terms in the future.

Photoshop is the world’s most powerful image editor, and it’s arguably the most complex, as well. Fortunately, nobody knows the program like award-winning book and video author Deke McClelland. Join Deke as he explores such indispensable Photoshop features as resolution, cropping, color correction, retouching, and layers. Gain expertise with real-world projects that make sense. Exercise files accompany the course.

Creating and assigning keywords

In this exercise, I am going to show you how to create and assign Keywordsinside of the Bridge.And it's a little bit of a pain in the neck, because it's a manual process.But you may find it fairly enjoyable.It's kind of Zen light.I cannot stress the importance of doing it on a regular basis.You will be so happy in the future, because the Bridge cannot look at an imageand say hey, yeah there is a guy in a snowmobile.Or there is a mountaintop, or there is a tower, or there is a child or anythinglike that, whereas you can.So if you take some time to add Keywords for people, places and friends thatkind of thing, then you can search for those terms in the future.

And make your images discoverable, years down the line which is a really,really terrific thing.All right so let's get started.I am working inside the 03_open_org folder.I am going to switch over to Sammy jumps, because these images already haveKeywords inside of them.I'll click on one press Ctrl+A or Command+A to select all of them.And then I'll press Ctrl+I or Command+I on the Mac to bring up the File Info dialog box.And notice that we have some Keywords separated by semicolons.So this is one way to add Keywords to an image, Boston; jumping;Sammy; wall.

So we essentially have a sentence, which is Sammy is jumping off a wall in Boston.Awesome!That's exactly what we want out of this.In the future I could search for that. All right!So I am going to cancel out of there.Let's go ahead and add these terms to our Keywords panel.I'll switch over to Keywords, which by default is located down in thelower right corner.I'll make my Keywords panel quite a bit taller by dragging up word onthat horizontal bar.And notice that Sammy and Boston are in the right locations.They are found inside the right category that is Sammy is a People and Boston is a Place.

And jumping and wall are just sitting there as Other Keywords.Now I want these guys to be persistent, so that I can use them in the future.So I am going to right-click on Sammy and chose Make Persistent.And then I'll right-click on Boston and do the same thing.Now then I'm going to add some Keyword categories.And the Bridge calls Keyword category's Keywords.And then it calls Keywords Sub Keywords.I don't really know why it does that.There might be some convention like that out there.Don't know, I find it to be confusing.But anyway, you click on the Plus button to create a new category here.

And I'm going to call this one Actions.And then I'll drag jumping into the Actions category, twirl it up and nowjumping is persistent just like that.Let's add another category for Objects like so.And then I'll drag wall into Objects, there it is and it becomes persistent as well.Now let's switch over to 03_open_org which contains some of the other images.And you know what while I am here I might as well add another Keyword for Max ofcourse, my eldest son.So I'll right-click on People and choose New Sub Keyword.

That's what you choose there.And then enter the name Max, like so.All right so now let's begin keywording these guys.I am going to grab these images of Sam right there.These two actually I will start with and label them Sammy, like so.And then I'll drop down here to this group.Since there is a bunch of images in row I'll click on one, Shift click on thelast one there, and label them with Sammy.Even though Max is highlighted here I am not using him for these specific images.It's the checkmark that actually counts.Let's continue to scroll down the list until we get to these images.

There is Sam along with Max of course, all the way down to here.And so I clicked on one, Shift clicked on the other, turned on Sammy.Now I am going to go back to Max.This guy is Max right there when he was very young. Turn on Max.And these two of course are Max.I'll go ahead and label them.So I am moving through this fairly quickly.You may be working along with me, maybe you're not, maybe you're just watchingme, which is perfectly fine.I will go ahead and click on this one.Ctrl+Click or Command+Click on this guy and Ctrl+Click or Command+Click onthis one too, because you may recall that is my son Max's knee smashing intomy son Sammy's head.

And now I'll go ahead and turn that one on.So we've labeled the People I think throughout all of these images.And at this point let's say that I want to label the animals.Now you may be groaning, thinking oh now we are not going to do all theseanimals Deke, forget about it.That would take us a while, and I don't want to sit here watching you createall these Keywords.Actually I created them in advance.So I am going to go up here to my Keyword flyout menu icon, click on it and choose Import.And then I will navigate my way into the Exercise Files folder.

This file sitting loose inside the Exercise Files folder because I didn'twant to trash out this open_org folder, because we are working in it so muchhere inside the Bridge.It's called Animal keywords.txt.And it's just a simple text file that you can export from Keywords if you want to.So there is an Export Command as well.It'll make a text file for you.Or you could take a look at how these text file is organized and create one of your own.Very easy to work with you'll see.Click on open and bang, there's a bunch of animals.Now I am no zoologist, so my Animal categories are anywhere from very general to very specific.

But that guy's a Primate and so are all these guys.So I'll label them as Primates, excellent.And then these guys right here are obviously hippopotamuses.I didn't make Hippos. My gosh!I better go ahead and right-click on Animals and choose New Sub Keyword and say Hippo.That's very important that we label Hippos.And then Shift+Click on this guy and turn on Hippo.And he is a Rhinoceros.So he is a, he is a miscellaneous animal.And these guys are some unknown brand of pigs.

So I will go ahead and make them Miscellaneous Mammals too.And then there are just two Hyenas.I didn't figure out I was going to make a Hyena category.And I don't know what that guy is, some horned creature.Go ahead and turn on Miscellaneous Mammal.All right well then there is an entire classification of birds, which includesthese guys right there.There might be more but they definitely suffice as birds, oh Red Pandas.Because he is so cute and cuddly he gets his own, Red Panda.And then Butterfly, let's go ahead and click on one, Shift+Click on the other.I think we've got, oh look of all those with Sammy right there.So I can Shift click all the way up to here.

So that was an entire day at the Butterfly Pavilion there.Go ahead and turn on Butterfly.And I think I've done some very nice keywording at this point.So you could go nuts, add more, do whatever you want.But that's basically what it's about.Just spend a few minutes after every photo shoot adding the Keywords.You will be glad you did.You'll remember people that you will forget a year from now.They will be identified inside of your library.So you can call them up very easily, which is convenient for friends and familymembers and essential for clients, believe me.

And in the next exercise I am going to show you how to run searches andassemble collections.

Q: While following along to the tutorial, my copy of Bridge does not have the same Export options as shown in the video. Why are these options missing in my copy?

A: For some reason, Bridge CS5 shipped without the Export options. They were included when Bridge updated to version 4.0.1. Updating Bridge will restore the export options.

Q: While following along with the exercises, next to the background layer on my Layers panel \, it shows a brush instead of the small picture, as it does in the video. What can I do to fix this? I erased the exercise files and started over, but it still shows the paintbrush.

A: This will occur if the Layers panel preview is turned off. To fix this, right-click in the empty gray area below the Background layer. Then choose Large Thumbnails. The thumbnail previews should come back immediately.

Q: The instructions for installing the dekeKeys don't work on my computer (which is running Mac OS X Lion). Is there an update to these?

A: The dekeKeys distributed with this course will still work for Lion. You just need to add them to a slightly different folder than in previous versions of OS X.

Open a new Finder window and choose Go > Go to Folder. Type the following file path exactly as written below. Copying and pasting may result in an error.

Learn by watching, listening, and doing, Exercise files are the same files the author uses in the course, so you can download them and follow along Premium memberships include access to all exercise files in the library.

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Learn by watching, listening, and doing! Exercise files are the same files the author uses in the course, so you can download them and follow along. Exercise files are available with all Premium memberships.
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